


The Future is Ashes

by ToneeStark



Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Iron Man - Fandom, IronWinter - Fandom, MCU, Marvel, The Avengers, The White Wolf - Fandom, Tony Stark - Fandom, WinterIron - Fandom, infinity war - Fandom, the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Avengers Infinity War, Illness, Infinity War spoilers, IronWinter - Freeform, M/M, One Shot, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Romance, Time Travel, ToneeStark, Tony Stark/ Bucky Barnes, Tumblr Prompt, winteriron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-06 00:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14630586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToneeStark/pseuds/ToneeStark
Summary: A visitor from the past and future visits Tony in a moment of despair and hopelessness.





	1. Chapter 1

In contrast to his brain, the park was silent. This scene was slightly shocking to Tony considering this particular park was in the middle of Malibu, overlooking the beach and ocean. The sun was going down, casting oranges, pinks, and purples across the mirrored water; it was beautiful, and Tony was the only one here to witness it. He was alone except for the Iron Man suit standing to the left of his park bench. Alone just like he wanted to be now and just like he wanted to die: with no one to witness it when he either died from palladium poisoning or when the shrapnel finally made it through the maze of veins pumping to his heart.

_My heart._

Tony didn’t think he really had one. Sure, he cared… too much most of the time… and he loved, and he felt emotions… but that was all just chemicals in his brain, right? He didn’t have the true combination of what gave a person a “heart”: bravery, honesty, _morals_. Yeah, after his drinking, fucking, and just general shittiness of his personality, he really didn’t think he had a heart.

Pepper had given Tony that gift a while back, the first arc reactor that he has designed and built in the caves with Yinsen. It had saved Tony’s life when Obi had taken his inlaid reactor to power the Iron Monger suit. Pepper thought he had a heart, but with all he had done to her, he thought that maybe it was due to something like Stockholm Syndrome. She was waiting on him hand and foot all the time, cleaning up his messes and tolerating his smartass attitude. Or maybe she was just insane to think that he, Anthony Edward Stark, had any fiber in his body that resembled ‘heart’.

He let out a deep breath, rolled forward, and put his head into his hands, settling his orbits into the fatty part of his palms. He felt tears building and squeezed his eyes shut tighter, trying to force back the lump that was in his throat and the salty water threatening to spill between his eyelids.

 _What am I going to do…_?

There was no cure that he could find for his palladium poisoning. There was no one to run the Iron Man when he died. Maybe Rhodey, but did he really want to put his best friend in that sort of danger? No, he was the only person. Not that it was a trust issue, more that it was an issue of him not thinking that he could take the guilt for being responsible for the deaths of anyone else, especially the only man who had supported him and tolerated him for most of his life.

Tony turned his head and rested his cheek on his fist, tears finally spilling over and dappling the concrete below his feet. Blurred in his vision, he sees the shape of a figure in all black walking slowly towards him. He blinks a few times and smears the wetness from his cheek, turning his head away as if his current emotional state was null.

He glanced again out of the corner of his eye, suddenly starting to feel uncomfortable. The dark figure was moving towards him now, face shrouded in a black hoodie and hands hidden in pants pockets. Tony’s hand went to his side, gripping the bench as he prepared to stand and side roll into the suit. The figure came up to him and sat down gingerly, grunting a little as he settled into the hard metal of the bench.

“No need for that, Iron Man.”

Tony swallowed and realized it was so loud the other person could definitely have heard it.

“I am not here to fight you… or kill you… or anything like that. I just want to talk, s’all.” The man pulled back his hood to reveal long, dark, disheveled hair, stubble along his jawline and upper lip, and unnaturally icy blue eyes. 

Tony’s brow was furrowed, clearly confused by this interaction, and he coughed before speaking, “What is it that you want to talk about? I am actually on my way out of here.” He wanted to make a snarky quip but found his emotions too raw and his eyes too sore to do so. He felt exposed and vulnerable, but there was something calming about this guy. His demeanor? The fact that he appeared familiar, but Tony couldn’t quite place where? Maybe the idea that someone wasn’t out to get him, take his money, or kill him?

The man had clearly practiced what he was about to speak, but there were pauses as he apparently tried to remember his speech, “You are important,” Tony raised an eyebrow at this.

“ _Ahem-_ you are important. For everything. You are ‘The Futurist’ and the only person who will know the terrors to face humankind…specieskind really. The galaxy. You with the help of others, but mostly it’s your ingenuity, dedication, and -well- stubbornness, that save the world.” The man smiled fondly, crinkles forming around his eyes in endearment.

“You have to survive Tony. I know that it seems hopeless and like whatever is happening with your chest is the endgame. It’s not. You- you are going to figure this out. You _must_. Or…” The man paused, and Tony could swear his crystalline eyes were threatening to spill tears. “Or we will never meet… and I will never love you and you will never love me… we will never get the opportunity to tell one another…and finally Tony….” Another pause and this time the man’s tears visibly dotted the concrete beside Tony’s drying stains.

The speech was gone. This man was speaking from his heart and Tony was gaping, three-quarters listening and one-quarter admiring the man’s stubbled jawline and beautiful chocolate tendrils of hair framing his round face. Tony started to speak, and the man raised his hand to place two fingers gently on Tony’s dry lips to silence him. “And finally… I will turn to dust. I will turn to dust with no hope of resurrection. You are the hope. The hope to save us all. My hope. My love. My sugar-peach.” The fingers moved from Tony’s lips and trailed down to his goateed chin. The pet name echoed in the mechanic’s head as the other man’s thumb raised up to the bottom of his chin and rubbed softly, comfortingly.

Tony was confused _as fuck_. But he was mesmerized. He knew this man. Maybe from the past, or maybe from the future, but he _knew him_ and the emotions he was feeling drew his cheek to press into the man’s warm, calloused hand. “Who _are_ you…?” Tony reached down to grasp the man’s left hand but met cold metal junctions that formed movable fingers. On instinct, Tony withdrew his attempt but settled his palm back down to wrap over the cold fingers.

“Go get Howard’s panels for the expo that was in that video, Tony. I have to go now, I don’t have time to explain, I don’t have long before…” The man stopped and moved forward, settling his lips on Tony’s, an immediate electricity pulsing through the genius’ veins. This was pure, unadulterated love flowing between their mouths and through their souls.

The man teased Tony’s bottom lip with his tongue and upon Tony’s admission, thrust it into the cavity. The metal fingers slipped from Tony’s grip and wrapped gingerly around the back of Tony’s neck, pulling him closer, as if to absorb Tony’s spirit through the kiss. The mechanic met the passion of the metal-armed man equally, still confused, but wanting more of whatever was occurring. _Needing_ more.

As if on cue, Tony felt nothing. There was nothing on his lips, no hand behind his head or fingers guiding his chin. Slowly, he opened his eyes and witnessed something peculiar to him and terrifying at the same time.

Above the park bench, where the man had sat seconds before, there was a cloud of ash blowing about casually in the wind. Tony felt soft touches on the back of his neck as the dust blew off his skin. He raised his pointer finger to press on his moist and swollen lips, pulling the touch back to reveal a dark smudge across his digit.

Tony blinked, realizing he was alone and wondering if this was real, or if he had finally died of palladium toxicity, or maybe he had finally lost his marbles. Either way, he felt despair… but also a sense of loyalty to do as this man said. To live. To survive. To go get Howard’s ’74 expo model and explore every facet of it. To do what he could to ensure he lived. To ensure that he lived to the point in time when he could talk to the man again and kiss him with all the passion his being could offer.


	2. The Future is Ashes, Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony travels to the future to save what he loves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This second chapter is being delivered due to a) popular demand and b) for my Tony Stark Bingo 2018 fill: Time Travel to the Future. 
> 
> It was a lot of fun writing this chapter. This is now planned out for an additional chapter, so it will be a 3 part series with the first chapter set in the past and the next two in the future. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! As always, please kudo, comment, and share if you like it!

The neon lights in front of him buzzed, noble gas particles soaring through the tubes at nonvisible speeds and colliding into one another to form what sounded like a hundred mosquitoes. Even louder still was the mid-sized arc reactor that sat next to the neon-blue laden metal box; it whined and soared, energy generating to power the machine for a lifetime and across multiple timespans.

His first go at a time machine. The neon lights were mostly for show, but also for warning any other time-travelers of his approach. He had never traveled through time before, so who was he to say that he couldn’t crash into another nearby time machine. Sure, physics and everything his massive brain had ever learned doubted this, but, to play it safe, neon flushed around the system as an admonition to those who might exist in the same time space as him.

It had taken him too long to determine who the figure was. The ash cloud who stole his heart, mind, and soul with one kiss. With its vow of faith and desire for Tony to continue living, despite the odds against him. Too long. For the longest time he had tried to brush the encounter away as a dream, some sort of near-death experience or maybe his brain giving him a dramatic way to discover the expo boards in his dad’s office. But after a while, after his thoughts and mind had thought thoroughly through the meeting, he knew it had to be real. The ash on his lips and hands had been real. That kiss had been _real._

He had recognized the man but never made the connection until after he blasted off his arm and almost killed him in a bunker in Siberia.  Only when Cap was beating into his face plate and slamming the shield into his chest, had he taken the chance to look over and truly see into the icy blue eyes of Bucky Barnes. At first, he had seen the murder of his parents in those eyes, but subsequently he saw the eyes of the man who had visited him so long ago. The man who had saved him from himself and from dying a horrifically painful, shrapnel-to-the-heart, induced death.

Tony remembered being in a state of shock, such shock that when Steve had finally thrust the shield through the chest plate and into the arc reactor powering the suit, he had barely flinched. He immediately felt remorse, but his pride and grief were too strong. Too strong to let him run to the winter soldier and apologize. To pull Cap into a hug and make amends.

No, Tony Stark’s hatred for himself only grew as he found he could not admit defeat nor apology. He let both men go, stumbling out of the bunker as he laid there, helpless, beaten, broken, and bruised.

That pride had only kept him from searching for Bucky. Kept him from calling Steve and telling him that, surprise, he was in love with Steve’s best friend who he had only met once and, when they did meet, his friend turned to a pile of ash.

Little did he know; Bucky Barnes would indeed turn into a pile of ashes approximately 2 years later. Half the planet did and God, or Thanos, or Buddah…whoever the fuck oversaw destiny, decided Tony didn’t get to have nice things. That Tony couldn’t catch a break. To take away almost everything from Tony.

Now he was going to get it back. Now he was going to change his destiny. This machine would allow him to travel back in time utilizing Pym’s, Shuri’s, and his tech. He would be able to garner the infinity stones before that giant purple ass ever even thought of them. When he got them, he would wait for Wanda, explain the situation, and they would destroy them. His future would be saved. His loved ones would be saved. Half of the world would be saved and would go about their lives peacefully… Tony hoped he could go about his in the same manner. But instead of being alone… James would be alive and he would hold him every second he could, never taking advantage of the time they would have together.

An older voice broke him from his reverie, “Alright Stark. You ready to give it a shot?”

Hank Pym looked over his spectacles, tablet in hand to document what happened when Tony gave the time machine its first go.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. Say, if this goes wrong, fix it, put Scott in here and tell him to unleash an army of fire ants on an Obidiah Stane in the year 2005, yeah? That’ll be the best way to earn my ghostie forgiveness,” Pym shook his head as Tony slowly opened the time machine door. It was a metal box, composed of vibranium generously donated by Shuri. There were no windows and not even any panels on the inside. The lack of panels were due to having a fail-safe person on the other end, controlling the time and location of the time-travel.

Tony strapped in, sweat forming on his brow out of anxiety, and looked Hank dead in the eyes. “Don’t kill me buddy. I have a lot to do. The dummy came back fine from the first trial run…. but I am a smarty not a dummy-“ Pym cut him off and closed the door. Although muffled, Tony could hear the older man give sarcastic condolences and subsequently reassurances about the safety of the machine and how Tony should be more confident in his work. “You have thirty minutes to get back to the machine Tony. We are sending you to the year 2030 for the test run…. _don’t fuck with anything._ ”

The warning lingered in Tony’s head as the machine began vibrating and churning even harder. Suddenly he felt like there was no gravity and that his stomach was going to fly from his throat and onto the ground. He felt dizzy yet alert as he swore the machine was spinning around. He felt a hoarse scream fly from his lips as he closed his eyes out of nausea and fear.

There was a light tap and rocking from side to side, and Tony felt still. Slowly he opened one eye and then the other, blinking rapidly afterwards. He laid his hand on the inner door handle, jiggling it to its open position, and then stumbled out, landing onto his hands and knees.

After he got his bearings, Tony looked up, sweaty strands of hair hanging in his eyes, and looked around. He was in the Avenger’s bunker. It looked similar, but significantly more high tech… which was saying something since, in 2018, it was already pretty tricked out. Screens lined glass walls of what used to be his workshop, but now was apparently… Peter’s? The only way Tony knew this was because of a backwards sign on the glass door reading “Peter’s Lab, Keep Out; Unless you have snacks…. Snacks are always welcome”.

 _Peter…_ Peter was alive. Peter wasn’t here right now… but he was alive. He had his own lab. _Peter is alive…_ Tony’s brain kept repeating the sentence over and over in shock and utter elation.

He stood up gradually and began looking around, admiring the various gadgets and tech stationed on the lab’s desks. Eventually Tony made his way out of the laboratory sector, up some stairs lined with plantlife and waterfalls, and went directly to where Steve’s quarters should be.

The whole bunker was silent. He never ran into a single person. He had attempted to whisper for FRIDAY, but there was no response, making him slightly sad. What the hell AI had he moved to this time and why wouldn’t it respond to his voice?

Tony knocked lightly on Steve’s door and, when no one answered, moved quietly through the doorway. It was decorated differently. In fact…. it was decorated like Steve didn’t even live here anymore. He walked over to the dresser where news clippings and photos were rotating on a digital screen above the dresser surface.

A picture of Tony and Steve, arms around each other’s backs, grinning widely. Tony recognized it as the photo that Nat had taken right after their first mission together as a team after New York. He smiled at the memory, suddenly missing his friend and feeling nostalgic; maybe it was time to go back to the time machine. Before he could turn on his heel and stride out of the room, a newspaper piece rolled onto the screen.

 _Tony Stark: Hero Falls and Restores Life to Earth._ Another, _Stark’s Sacrifice._ Another, _Captain America and Iron Man Fall to Save the Earth._

 _Fall?_ Tony’s head nodded left as he digested the information. _We die..._

“You’ve built it haven’t you?” Startled, Tony turned around and met blue eyes with his own brown ones. “The time machine?”

**Author's Note:**

> Took me a long time to get this done. I am not the best author for WinterIron, but I tried. Let me know what you think by leaving a kudos or comment (constructive criticism included). Thank you for reading!


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